
A place to post and discuss news related to the recent events in Israel, including the Hamas/Islamic Jihad incursion and repercussions.
Fair enough, I think where we differ is that I believe their "rebukes" were obviously entirely performative and hollow, and everyone knew it. It was almost worse than silence, honestly, because the Biden admin absolutely was saying "Them's the breaks. These are rough guys, you have to treat them that way," they were just handwaving about civilian casualties publically.
I don't know that there were performative, in the sense that what the D's really wanted was Gaza to be paved and they used talky-talk to obfuscate their real intention/preferred outcome of more Palestinian deaths.
I hope I'm not coming across as too picky here! I am trying to draw a distinction that D's believe that talking alone will result in the proper outcome. No. Sometimes you gotta take action.
I'm probably being too pedantic?
I think we all agree Biden's failed miserably here.
In early November, a small group of senior U.S. human rights diplomats met with a top official in President Joe Biden’s State Department to make one final, emphatic plea: We must keep our word.
Weeks before, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the administration delivered their most explicit ultimatum yet to Israel, demanding the Israel Defense Forces allow hundreds more trucksloads of food and medicine into Gaza every day — or else. American law and Biden’s own policies prohibit arms sales to countries that restrict humanitarian aid. Israel had 30 days to comply.
In the month that followed, the IDF was accused of roundly defying the U.S., its most important ally. The Israeli military tightened its grip, continued to restrict desperately needed aid trucks and displaced 100,000 Palestinians from North Gaza, humanitarian groups found, exacerbating what was already a dire crisis “to its worst point since the war began.”
Several attendees at the November meeting — officials who help lead the State Department’s efforts to promote racial equity, religious freedom and other high-minded principles of democracy — said the United States’ international credibility had been severely damaged by Biden’s unstinting support of Israel. If there was ever a time to hold Israel accountable, one ambassador at the meeting told Tom Sullivan, the State Department’s counselor and a senior policy adviser to Blinken, it was now.
But the decision had already been made. Sullivan said the deadline would likely pass without action and Biden would continue sending shipments of bombs uninterrupted, according to two people who were in the meeting.
Those in the room deflated. “Don’t our law, policy and morals demand it?” an attendee told me later, reflecting on the decision to once again capitulate. “What is the rationale of this approach? There is no explanation they can articulate.”
Soon after, when the 30-day deadline was up, Blinken made it official and said that Israelis had begun implementing most of the steps he had laid out in his letter — all thanks to the pressure the U.S. had applied.
That choice was immediately called into question. On Nov. 14, a U.N. committee said that Israel’s methods in Gaza, including its use of starvation as a weapon, was “consistent with genocide.” Amnesty International went further and concluded a genocide was underway. The International Criminal Court also issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister for the war crime of deliberately starving civilians, among other allegations. (The U.S. and Israeli governments have rejected the genocide determination as well as the warrants.)
The October red line was the last one Biden laid down, but it wasn’t the first. His administration issued multiple threats, warnings and admonishments to Israel about its conduct after Oct. 7, 2023, when the Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel, killed some 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages.
Government officials worry Biden’s record of empty threats have given the Israelis a sense of impunity.
Trump, who has made a raft of pro-Israel nominations, made it clear he wanted the war in Gaza to end before he took office and threatened that “all hell will break out” if Hamas did not release its hostages by then.
On Wednesday, after months of negotiations, Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire deal. While it will become clear over the next days and months exactly what the contours of the agreement are, why it happened now and who deserves the most credit, it’s plausible that Trump’s imminent ascension to the White House was its own form of a red line. Early reports suggest the deal looks similar to what has been on the table for months, raising the possibility that if the Biden administration had followed through on its tough words, a deal could have been reached earlier, saving lives.
“Netanyahu’s conclusion was that Biden doesn’t have enough oomph to make him pay a price, so he was willing to ignore him,” said Ghaith al-Omari, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute who’s focused on U.S.-Israel relations and a former official with the Palestinian Authority who helped advise on prior peace talks. “Part of it is that Netanyahu learned there is no cost to saying ‘no’ to the current president.”
Long, but it's ProPublica, so horrifying and thoroughly detailed.
To repeat what I said earlier, to watch Biden feign compassion for Palestinians is equal parts disgusting and infuriating. It's not even that he doesn't care, it's that he's lying to my face about it.
EDIT: Also, and please, feel free to show me I'm wrong, but I haven't seen a single report that indicates that the Biden administration and their officials meaningfully attempted to talk their way out of it. Every bit of investigative reporting I've seen reveals the same thing: They supported it.
Well, that whole thing undercuts my view and asks, "What do you D's stand for? You wanted more deaths?" Maybe (if I'm being generous) "We just don't want to spend time on this anymore."
Horrifying things
Listen to Ezra Klein's podcast this week if you aren't feeling angry enough. Jake Sullivan tries to claim that Biden was conflicted about halting arms sales because that would leave Israel defenseless from all the other threats surrounding them. He really has a punchable face, btw.
I keep thinking that it'd be ironic that a cease fire deal ends up ending Netanyahu's political career. Everyone left of him hates him and it remains to be seen if everyone to right of him will sign on to the agreement.
Listen to Ezra Klein's podcast this week if you aren't feeling angry enough. Jake Sullivan tries to claim that Biden was conflicted about halting arms sales because that would leave Israel defenseless from all the other threats surrounding them. He really has a punchable face, btw.
Jake Sullivan and Anthony Blinken should both be thrownqwoiual%k4js@#,mn,msdf Ah, damn, there's something wrong with my keyboard or something?!
Welp, Lucy moved the football again!
Welp, Lucy moved the football again!
But it's 2025, so now its a nuclear football.
Ceasefire deal in limbo as Israeli party threatens to withdraw support
"Why should we stop killing? No one is telling us we can't"
Ceasefire deal in limbo as Israeli party threatens to withdraw support
"Why should we stop killing? No one is telling us we can't"
As was foretold, actions > words:
Fun fact- "When you have to shoot shoot. Don't talk" was an ad-lib.
Ceasefire officially began Sunday.
After 15 months of war, Hamas still rules over what remains of Gaza
As a ceasefire brought calm to Gaza’s ruined cities, Hamas was quick to emerge from hiding.
The militant group has not only survived 15 months of war with Israel — among the deadliest and most destructive in recent memory — but it remains firmly in control of the coastal territory that now resembles an apocalyptic wasteland. With a surge of humanitarian aid promised as part of the ceasefire deal, the Hamas-run government said Monday that it will coordinate distribution to the desperate people of Gaza.
For all the military might Israel deployed in Gaza, it failed to remove Hamas from power, one of its central war aims. That could make a return to fighting more likely, but the results might be the same.
There was an element of theater in Sunday’s handover of three Israeli hostages to the Red Cross, when dozens of masked Hamas fighters wearing green headbands and military fatigues paraded in front of cameras and held back a crowd of hundreds who surrounded the vehicles.
The scenes elsewhere in Gaza were even more remarkable: Thousands of Hamas-run police in uniform re-emerged, making their presence known even in the most heavily destroyed areas.
“The police have been here the whole time, but they were not wearing their uniforms” to avoid being targeted by Israel, said Mohammed Abed, a father of three who returned to his home in Gaza City more than seven months after fleeing the area.
“They were among the displaced people in the tents. That’s why there were no thefts,” he said.
Other residents said the police had maintained offices in hospitals and other locations throughout the war, where people could report crimes.
Israel has repeatedly blamed Hamas for the heavy civilian death toll and damage to infrastructure because the group’s fighters and security forces embed themselves in residential neighborhoods, schools and hospitals.
Slim Hamas parades show hollowness of either side’s claims to victory in Gaza
Hours after the ceasefire was declared on Sunday, Hamas fighters were back on Gaza’s streets. Not many, it was true, and those who appeared were armed only with Kalashnikov rifles and some rudimentary body armour, but they were there.
In Khan Younis, a handful of pickup trucks with gunmen onboard drove through cheering crowds of young men. Dozens of uniformed fighters with Hamas headbands were visible when the three Israeli hostages were handed over in Gaza City. Elsewhere, there were reports that Hamas policemen, dressed in blue police uniform, deployed in some areas after months in hiding to avoid Israeli strikes.
These were the sights that Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, wanted to avoid, but no doubt knew would come. They are the images that Hamas most want to be seen – in Gaza and the West Bank, the region and the world. They do not show a large or particularly capable force, and social media has exerted its usual magnifying effect. But, as they were meant to do, the images show that Hamas has survived the Israeli onslaught of the last 15 months and that, Hamas leaders believe, is a major victory in itself.
The reality is that Hamas has suffered huge losses. On the day of the 7 October 2023 raids, Hamas fired thousands of missiles deep into Israel. Now, it can only fire the occasional projectile at targets a dozen or so kilometres away. Supply lines have been cut, ammunition stores emptied and most new bombings use recycled explosives from ordnance fired by Israel. Much of the tunnel network built under Gaza by Hamas has been destroyed.
Its top leaders in Gaza, including Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas at the time of his death and mastermind of the 7 October attacks, are dead. So too are many experienced middle-ranking militants.
Israeli’s claims that 17,000 Hamas fighters have been killed are difficult to credit. An analysis by ACLED, an independent, non-profit organisation collecting data on violent conflict, said in October that detailed reports by the Israel Defense Forces on the killing of militants containing specifics on timeframes, locations or operations accounted for approximately 8,500 fatalities, though this figure also includes militants from other armed groups and possibly other non-combatant Hamas members.
Such casualties would account for perhaps a quarter of the prewar strength of Hamas’s military wing, which tallies with reports that some big Hamas formations in central Gaza are intact.
Antony Blinken, the outgoing US secretary of state, said in a speech last week that Hamas had recruited almost as many combatants as it has lost and that this was a recipe for prolonged insurgency, and so another reason for a ceasefire deal.
Israeli officials say recruit numbers are lower than Blinken suggests and that inexperienced teenagers cannot replace hardened, well-trained veterans.
This may be true, but even if seriously degraded, Hamas was still able to hurt Israeli forces right until the ceasefire. Recent fighting has been fierce in Beit Hanoun, a town in northern Gaza, with Israeli commanders underestimating the size and morale of Hamas’s forces there, as well as the extent of its tunnel-network reconstruction. Hamas inflicted significant casualties as a consequence.
On the political front, Hamas has also been weakened. It has lost control of the territory it governed for 16 years, with all the prestige, power, facilities and revenue that it brought. Many Hamas officials are dead; its network of clubs, charities and religious associations scattered. Other actors – big criminal families, for example – now compete for influence. Many in Gaza blame Hamas as well as Israel for the bloody war that has caused 47,000 deaths and so much destruction.
But for the moment, without any agreed plan for a government for Gaza, there is no one else. Aid organisations still deal with many of the same administrators they knew back in the summer of 2023. A Hamas media office functions, and is ambitiously describing a “government plan” to return Gaza to its prewar condition.
The reality is that neither side can claim an outright victory, which is one reason that this moment of fragile calm has come. Tragically, it is also why any hopes of a durable peace may be dashed.
Israel has repeatedly blamed Hamas for the heavy civilian death toll and damage to infrastructure because the group’s fighters and security forces embed themselves in residential neighborhoods, schools and hospitals.
"Stop hitting my fist with your face!"
Palestinians living in Gaza should want to relocate during reconstruction, Trump says
President Donald Trump said Tuesday ahead of a meeting with Israel's prime minister that Palestinians living in Gaza should want to relocate during the reconstruction phase and that he was discussing the possibility with the leaders of Egypt and Jordan.Trump proposed last month to “just clean out that whole thing." He said then that the territory’s residents could be relocated temporarily or long term.
At the White House on Tuesday, as he signed an executive order on Iran, he went even further, telling reporters it's a "very dangerous" and "terrible" place to live and he did not know how they could want to stay.
"They're there because they have no alternative," he said. "I would think if they had an option of moving, either in a large group or various smaller groups, to take care of the close to 2 million people, I would think that they would be thrilled to do."
yes many of them would not want to stay but for some it is their homeland.
yes many of them would not want to stay but for some it is their homeland.
reverse "many" and "some." then replace "many" with "the overwhelming majority"
Gaza already IS where Palestinians relocated and they were never allowed to return to their homes. If they're forced out of Gaza, they'll never be allowed back.
Ummmm. No
Trump says US will 'take over' the Gaza Strip and 'level' it
Trump once again says Gaza is a “demolition site” that is “very dangerous and very precarious”.
He says the Palestinians in Gaza should be moved to a “beautiful area with homes and safety …. so that they can live out their lives in peace and harmony”.
“The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,” Trump says.
We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings.
Chainsaw Man with the "Not so fast, my friend:"
I don't know why he's writing letters.
He needs to get out his checkbook.
Because nobody knows where to deposit checks in the US government right now.
Because nobody knows where to deposit checks in the US government right now.
Mar-a-Lago, or Trump Tower.
Kinda hard to get the Greenlanders off their domain and Canadians out of Canada. So he wants to appropriate Gaza?? This guy is nuts.
Palestinian Communities in the US: "We know Donald Trump loves Israel and moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem, but we're voting for him anyway because we don't see how he could be worse than Biden."
Trump, less than three weeks in: "We're going to take over Gaza and move out all the Palestinians."
Palestinian Communities:
As it turns out, you have to reach out to communities to get them to support you. Not just say you will be the lesser of two evils.
"Like Chuck Schumer."
The irony of what was proposed as the "solution", history of the Third Reich, and Native American dispossession repeating itself is just. I don't know, I didn't think humans would be so stupid.
It's as if the easiest answer is just keep taking what you want off of people who have what you want at the tip of a sword / infested blanket / MIC.
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